Chapter 84.1: Katarina (6)
Most of them were happy to be invited for such a big event, and their faces were glowing bright, except for one of them.
Katarin was staring at the floor with a dingy, dead expression.
‘He didn’t come after all…’
Over the past few days, Cloud hadn’t returned.
On the first day, she ignored, but on the second day, she started getting a little anxious, and on the third day, she couldn’t stand it and went through his luggage.
There were many miscellaneous items in his luggage, but no important items such as money.
She shook her head and consoled herself, ‘If it’s an important item, he would carry it on himself. He will be back soon.’
But soon, she had no choice but to accept.
‘My body was the target…’
Once in the past, one of her dancer colleagues was cheated on by a man who ran away, leaving her behind to cry her woes… A sad fate…
Never she’d thought that it would be hers too.
‘Bastard. I was serious…!’
Katarina had cried out her eyes red that day.
“Is Miss Katarina here?”
“Yes. I am.”
“Next is your turn. Get ready and step outside.”
The butler, who stopped by the waiting room to call her name, left.
Katarina wiped away her tears and grabbed her saber. She made a promise as she walked out of the waiting room.
‘After killing Lonwell, it’s Cloud’s turn.’
She promised…
Until she saw Cloud standing next to Lonwell, her resolve was broken.
Why… why was he over here?
Was he one of Lonwell’s subordinates? So it had been their intention all along..?
Noticing her stupor, Lonwell said, tsking, “She is a dancer I invited… but the lady seems to be interested in men beside me, haha.”
“What you mean…”
“Tsk… This is the Adventurer I called as a guest and escort.”
“Hi?”
Cloud chuckled and waved his hand.
‘Escort? Adventurer?’
Only then did Katarina realize that he hadn’t been playing with her. The resentment that was filling her heart subsided. But a little was still left.
‘You could have told me before leaving!’
When Katarina glared at him, Cloud smiled bitterly. She held back a sigh.
‘I won’t forgive him easily…’
“What are you doing? Come on, Miss, dance.”
Katarina looked at the man with a dry expression on her face.
‘I have to end the long lasting rivalry first.’
Two cogs with resentment on same torque turned.
* * *
[Segment 1: The Dance of the Butterfly.]
The moment the dance started, Katarina’s demeanor changed. Her girlish freshness was gone, and the caterpillar’s desperateness to survive took hold of the atmosphere around her.
The survival was gruesome, but not ugly.
The strange difference caught the attention of the audience.
Katarina continued her dance and looked at Cloud with squinted eyes.
Katarina’s life was also bleak like a caterpillar in her dance.
She dreamed of revenge, but the reality was bleak.
Lonwell was the upper classman among upper classmen, while Katarina was just a lower runk nobody, barely getting by.
When she was about to give up everything, even her mother’s dance, which was her only hope, her life took a turn.
‘You appeared.’
The day she was about to fall, he picked her up and lent her his shoulder.
Thanks to him, she could see hope again.
The caterpillar, barely worming its way, became a pupae, before breaking off its thick shell, and then becoming a beautiful butterfly and flying away.
‘Ah…’
Lonwell exclaimed.
Such a graceful and beautiful dance.
That dance that even changed the atmosphere around her was definitely Anelliese’s.
She had inherited her mother’s dancing skills to a T.
‘All preparations have been completed.’
In the chaos that would unfold with Lonwell’s death, Cloud was scheduled to leave the banquet hall with Katarina. After that, the hand he was leaving behind to support her would perform its machinations.
So he didn’t have to worry about it anymore.
The only wish left was to admire Anelliese’s dance for the last time and soak in the afterglow.
Katarina’s sword dance reached its peak.
Her sword, which expressed the beauty of nature and ferocity of beasts, now began to draw something that was not just life and vitality.
[Closing Segment: Dance of Death.]
All things come to an end, to cease existing, and that is death.
The distance between the two — life and death — was getting closer to the front.
The blade representing death was directed at Lonwell’s neck.
‘Finally.’
Years of hard work was paying off.
She would be free from those painful memories.
The girl was delighted.
‘Finally.’
The end of a sinful life was coming.
The man accepted.
The ending both of them expected for their own reasons was coming close to fruition.
Kang!
With a clear metallic sound, the saber aiming at Lonwell flew away. Katarina and Lonwell opened their eyes wide and looked at Cloud, the protagonist who had halted the saber’s trajectory.
Cloud intervened between the two dumbfounded people in an unexpected situation.
“Evening, Katarina. Meet him, your biological father.”
* * *
The time point in the game when Katarina and Cloud meet is after her revenge is over.
The plot is the happenings of an encounter with Cloud while traveling on a journey to soothe her heart that had rapidly gone empty after her revenge, which she had devoted half her life to, was over.
Just as she carried the pain of losing her parents, Cloud also carried the pain of losing his comrades.
The two of them, who shared pain in their heart, got along quite well, and gradually became aware of each other as members of the opposite sex.
But this was an NTR game.
It was also a desperate game that I had picked to apesh!t a friend who hadn’t paid back.
After losing the first three, will the latter three give the main character happiness?
No way.
If it was such a game, I wouldn’t have picked it.
Not that I had any idea I would get transported into this game.
Anyway, Katarina’s NTR trigger is the truth about her revenge.
The revenge she spent half her life on.
As the plot progresses, it is revealed that the target of her revenge was her own father and that he had been helping her behind her back.
Katarina avenged her parents’ death, but she was deeply disturbed by the irony that she carried with it.
Well, needless to say what happened after that.
And, of course, I have no intention of going through that.
That’s why I met her before her revenge began.
“Evening, Katarina. Meet him, your biological father.”